The Seventh Adventure

[mgtremaine]

Kiplyn would smile at that. "Yes I agree JOHNNYCAKES are the RIGHT start to any new endeavor. You should order them Beppo."

[mushgnome]

Frederick rolls his eyes and starts heating up the special Johnnycakes griddle. He has seen this dance enough times that he trusts the younger Club members to handle the newcomer Beppo. He wants to see how well they do at keeping alive the Club traditions and growing the community.

Frederick hasn't really talked about this, but he is getting on in years, and he doesn't have any children to pass along his legacy. There is no Frederick IX.

If you think of Frederick as an aging Willie Wonka type figure, do his bizarre "rules" and "tests" start to make more sense, in that context?

[mushgnome]

Bilfur pulls a scroll-case from his backpack and hands it to Dougal for closer inspection. (Dougal claims to have some expertise with languages, and this is a good test of that ability.) Bilfur has already given the scroll a quick once-over, just enough to determine it is not any type of Druid spell-scroll.

Dougal clears a table of crumbs and unfurls the contents of the scroll case. There are two pieces of paper inside. The paper is brittle with age, and Dougal has to handle it with great care. Additionally, it has a brownish stain, that makes the writing hard to read. Dougal pulls the lantern closer and tries his best to decipher the script. (He's glad to be doing this on the surface, not in the chaos of the dungeon environment.)

The first two things Dougal notices are big clues: First the documents appear to be correspondence between two people. It looks like two written letters, with the standard salutation at the top and signature at the bottom. Second the documents are in two languages, English and a strange runic alphabet. Dougal is clever enough to realize that the paragraph structure and word count of the runic text corresponds to the English text. Therefore he is pretty confident, the runic text is a translation of the English text.

The first letter, the English text is written in ornate, spidery calligraphy, but the runic letters look shaky and un-confidently written. This is what it says:

Oh Great King Under The Mountain,

Please accept our humble TRIBUTE of 12 ürkel-weight finest electrum and 12 of our Spyder-Hobbet slaves to serve you for a year and a day. We greatly desire cultural exchange between our people. The Humans of Hornpype have much to offer, including many exciting advances in the occult sciences.

Spyderously Yours,
Severus Hornpype

The second letter, the runes are written in a strong, bold hand, but the English letters are clumsy.

Puny Human,

What need have we for your inferior mountain-product? We wipe our arses with golden leaf. Our babies suckle diamond pacifiers. Take your B-grade ürkel-bars and shove them!

Spyder club are MONSTERS. Those poor Hobbets, my god!

I poop on your proposal. If we see you in our caves again, it means WAR!

Brecon Smout
King Under The Mountain

Reading all of this is overwhelming for poor Dougal. His mind reels and he feels slightly more attuned to the occult universe. Some kind of ancient three-way conspiracy between humans, hobbets, and a powerful subterranean race? It boggles the mind!

Dougal has to make two d6 rolls.

First a Mythos check. Dougal should have known this was coming, based on the profession of the scroll's previous owner (as we discussed via PM). You would have to assume, that any document found in the possession of somebody like that would be potentially sanity-altering.

1d6 = 4, fail, Dougal's Myth increases to 3.

Second, he has to pass a Read Languages check 1d6 = 4, success!

Dougal has discovered a "Rosetta stone" type document, for translating this mystery language to English! This is going to be helpful to the party, for translating any potential future documents in this language. Nice score!

[ehiker133]

Dougal finishes his recitation and carefully stows the documents back in the case. "If you want, I can hold on to this. It will be very helpful if we come across any text in this... this strange runic language."

He quietly thinks for a moment before adding, "What sort of people turn away riches like this... what did he say? Electrum? And... whoever this Brecon Smout, this King Under The Mountain is, he seems sympathetic to hobbets! Frederick, what do you know of these bars, this... electrum? And a King Under The Mountain?"

[mushgnome]

Frederick replies to Dougal, "I am not a language scholar. But from the author's combination of grandiosity and toilet humor, I think this Smout may have been a Dwarf!. That's right, a lot of people think Dwarves are a fairy tale (and there is even a movement to deny or cover up their existence). But in my family, we know for a fact that Dwarves are real. Or at least they were real--they're extinct now! My ancestor Original Frederick was a party member on a Dwarf named Old Skirvir's Final Adventure. It wasn't documented of course (because of the First Rule) but I am telling the truth. I wouldn't lie to you. Old Skirvir kept a low profile and believed he was the last surviving Dwarf. I'm Frederick the Eighth, so we are talking about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... 8 generations ago. That's a really long time! But the conflict with the Spyder Cult was in the time of Frederick III. So that would push the known survival of Dwarves forward at least two additional Hobbet-generations in history. That's a pretty big deal! Nice discovery. It's too bad he doesn't say which 'Mountain.' I'm sure he doesn't mean our little Hornpipe Hill?"

He slaps himself in the forehead: "Listen to me, rambling on, giving you all these spoilers, tsk tsk. Sometimes I just can't help myself. It makes me feel young again, to be a small part of your Adventure.

"Oh, and that strange metal: You should be careful where you spend that! If you show it to a human jeweller, they will ask a lot of questions. I recommend showing it to the blacksmith who is working on Dame Simonetta's armor. It's probably time to set up a meeting with her, you should get to know her. I'll work on setting that up."

[mgtremaine]

"Wait so this was Original Frederick's Pancake House™" Kiplyn's eyes widen.

[mushgnome]

"None other! He cut down the trees with ol' Chopper there."

Frederick indicates an antique axe hanging in a display case on the wall. Then he winks at Noh. Some private joke?

"Of course there were a lot more Hobbets back then, and a lot less Humans."

[dtspurrier]

bilfur says, " dougal you hold on to the scroll. I can barely read much anyway." Bilfur waits for the johnny cakes.

[kipper]

Dame Simonetta's interest is piqued at the mention of Dwarves. She insists on seeing the documents herself, she is extremely interested in studying the Dwarf language!

She will collect a separate pile of papers, which she will use to take thorough and complete notes on her findings. She will start with accurate transcriptions of the originals, the originals she will return to Dougal when she is done. Then she will proceed to an analysis of grammar, syntax, and such as she can determine. This will engross her for much of her current time above ground.

OOC: Whether or not this will require her to make a MYTH check is irrelevant, she will still go ahead. Her ultimate goal is to add Runic Dwarf (Written only) to her "Languages Known", perhaps these two letters are insufficient but it will be a start!

[mushgnome]

OOC: Consider it done! Dame Simonetta gains Runic Dwarf as one of her bonus languages. Her understanding is at the elementary level but this can increase organically over time, if she gains access to more reading material.

She aces her Myth check with a roll of 1, leaving her Myth score stable at 2.

At this point, let's say that the documents are "inert" in terms of Mythos risk. Dougal took a one-time hit from the shock of discovery, but the actual contents of the letter aren't, in and of themselves, sanity-shattering. From here on out, there is no risk from studying the runes.

(If it were a more intense type of document, like say The Necronomicon, then you might have to make a new Mythos check, each and every time you read from it. There is no point at which a book like that ever becomes "safe" to read.)